Another cog in the culture industry

June 22, 2016

I've long been an admirer of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre. The good folks at The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society have shown themselves to be reliable stewards of Lovecraft's legacy, and their audio versions of HPL's tales have always been excellent. After a while, though, I began to wonder what they would do once they ran out of Lovecraft stories amenable to radio-style dramatic adaptation. Fortunately, though, the HPLHS have been giving some thought to the very same issue, and they've proven themselves up to the challenge.

The two previous DART episodes, Dagon: War of Worlds and A Solstice Carol, took a Lovecraft tale (or three, as was the case with the latter adaptation) and spun out a new story inspired by his type of weird fiction. I'm especially fond of DWoW, since it blended Lovecraft with H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, but I have to admit that the idea of combining Lovecraft and Dickens in ASC was also inspired. I've listened to both episodes many times with great enjoyment.

The latest episode, The White Tree: A Tale of Inspector Legrasse, is a new departure for DART. In TWT, the element drawn from Lovecraft's fiction is restricted to a character from a famous tale. Inspector John Raymond Legrasse, who first appeared in "The Call of Cthulhu," heads back to the Louisiana bayou to tangle with a new Lovecraftian menace. The rest of the story is the original work of the HPLHS. According to the credits, Sean Branney, wrote the story and the audio play. He did a bangup job, as far as I'm concerned.

Lovecraft's stories frequently involve someone who is professionally drawn to mystery. Usually, these protagonists are scholars, but others with a personally perilous sense of curiosity show up from time to time. Because Inspector Legrasse is a veteran of weird happenings, it makes sense for him to be keeping a weather eye on the local criminal scene for any re-appearance of the Cthulhu cult (or some other equally disturbing occult danger). Also, because he is a police officer, he can believably swing into action and can do so more believably than many of Lovecraft's rather anemic scholarly protagonists. And, finally, he can be thrust into a historical context that includes voodoo and the Ku Klux Klan. So Branney's choice of Legrasse is an especially good one.

I heartily recommend "The White Tree" to you. I don't want to spoil the plot, so I won't give away any of the details. Just be assured that, as is always the case with DART, you're in good Lovecraftian hands from beginning to end. Here's a new twist: TWT contains significant characters drawn from the ranks of people who usually have only tiny roles in HPL's tales. Women and minorities, that is. Sadly, HPL wasn't good about this sort of thing. Modern listeners will welcome this development.

I'm eagerly looking forward to more new stories from the HPLHS and DART.

August 24, 2015

I've been an admirer of the good folks at The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society for a long time. Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, their series of radio-style adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, has been great fun, and so I'm always eager to hear the latest episode. But as the years have passed, I've wondered how much longer the HPLHS could continue to adapt Lovecraft in this fashion. After all, he wrote only so many stories of sufficient length to fill an entire CD.

Three days ago I was very excited to learn that a new episode of DART is now available for pre-order. I immediately purchased a copy of the CD with props (which, by the way, are always a hoot). Much to my surprise, though, my order included a free MP3 file. So I was able to download and listen to Dagon: War of Worlds as soon as I completed my PayPal transaction.

I had thought that the HPLHS, once they ran out of sufficiently long stories, could produce anthology episodes of DART. But what they've done this time around is much more compelling than that. They've taken HPL's "Dagon" (as well as aspects of "The Temple" and "The Whisperer in Darkness") and adapted it in the style of Orson Welles's "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.

I have to say that the HPLHS has really hit a homerun with this episode. The results are vastly more action-packed (lots of gunfire and explosions) than a typical episode of DART. You'll follow with rapt attention as Nathan Reed of Worldwide Wireless News covers the breaking news of a global attack on the surface world. It's really quite a ride that bodes well for the future of DART.

I just listened to DWOW a second time, and I'm so worn out from all of the thrills that I'd kill for a bottle of Bub-L-Pep.

August 22, 2007

A couple of years ago the Criterion Collection released Orson Welles's F for Fake in a two-disc edition. I'd never manged to see this particular film, despite my fondness for Welles's work as a director, and so I eagerly bought the set.

F for Fake is a rather free-spirited documentary about forgery and deceit that looks at, among other things, the hoaxes perpetrated by Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. It's all too complicated to summarize here. If you're interested, you can look at the Wikipedia entry and then start following links to all of the participants.

Well, it's impossible not to be fascinated by such people. Consequently, I went looking for a copy of Fake!, Irving's biography of Elmyr. Since there are numerous references to it in Welles's film, I thought that I should read it. It was out of print two years ago, but I easily found a used copy through a third-party seller on Amazon.com. Since Irving is a talented writer, I found the book to be a pleasure to read. I went through it in a single evening.

I started looking into Irving's other books and wound up reading his true crime story, Daddy's Girl. It too is out of print, but I found a copy at a local used book store. Once again, the book was a gripping read. If you go to this page and scroll down a bit, you'll find three lengthy interviews with Irving from 1984, 1988, and 1990. He discusses his books, his time in prison, and so forth. The interview from 1988 is devoted to Daddy's Girl.

Not too long after I watched Welles's movie and read two of Irving's books, I noticed that a film about Irving and his Howard Hughs hoax, a film starring Richard Gere, was soon to be released. I guess that it's been out for a while in the States, but is only now in release in the U.K. As you would expect, the film has been getting some attention in the British press, as has Irving himself. The Daily Telegraph published a lengthy profile of Irving about a month ago. Mick Brown visited Irving in Aspen, Colorado, and got him to talk about his life.

Irving, of course, published his own book about the Howard Hughes hoax. It's entitled, appropriately enough, The Hoax. It's the basis of the film. According to Irving himself, however, the film doesn't actually have very much to do with the truth. Go to this page on Irving's website for his take on the project.

June 10, 2006

Unfortunately, book reviews are sometimes written by people who seem to have little to no familiarity with the subject matter of the book under review. I just encountered an example of this in the review of the second volume of Simon Callow's ongoing biography of Orson Welles that Anne Applebaum recently wrote for The Spectator.

Apparently, the new volume of Callow's biography covers the 1940s, the period in which Welles directed Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, It's All True, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai, and Macbeth. From her review it's impossible to tell whether or not Ms. Applebaum has actually seen any of these films besides Citizen Kane.

A large portion of the review deals with the making of It's All True, which Ms. Applebaum never mentions by name. It's certainly true that Welles's behavior in Brazil alienated him from the people at RKO, contributed to the mangling of the great-in-spite-of-it-all The Magnificent Ambersons, and caused the studio to put an end to It's All True.

Here is one of Ms. Applebaum's observations about It's All True: "Allegedly, he did film some scenes of intense beauty. . . ." This is a remarkable admission of ignorance. Some of the footage that Welles shot has been available to the public since 1993. I have it on VHS, and it's now available on DVD.

Consequently, there's no need to allege anything. Ms. Applebaum could have seen for herself whether or not It's All True contains scenes of intense beauty. Apparently, she couldn't be bothered to do so. Or, and this is worse, she doesn't even realize that she could have watched what's now available. If the latter is the case, then she should never have been given the assignment of reviewing Callow's new book.

The rest of Welles's career, according to Ms. Applebaum, was filled with "colossal failures and unfinished projects." You'll be forgiven if you get the impression that Welles never directed anything of interest or importance after Citizen Kane, which leaves you wondering why someone such as Simon Callow would bother to write a multi-volume biography of Welles.

Let us pray that the gods of publishing will henceforth protect us from ignorant and condescending reviewers!